YES Philly and PhillyCAM have collaborated on “Pushouts,” a youth-led initiative designed to raise community awareness about high school drop-out rates in Philadelphia.
Through [students'] research, which was a combination of interviews with peers and others and blog posts, [students] discovered that a combination of a lack of family support, problems with school officials and problems with school policy that turned school into a negative experience, are what causes students to leave school. Thus, the students don’t feel as if they’ve “dropped out” as much as they feel as if they have been “pushed out”, thus the title of the film.
There will be a screening tonight (May 24th) at the Painted Bride from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Learn more about the program at PhillyCAM and YES Philly.
When flash mobs — impromptu gatherings often coordinated through social media — began popping up in Center City Philadelphia, many media outlets characterized the mobs in a negative light, focusing on vandalism and other consequences of youth congregating en masse in public places. Though there was some validity to claims of vandalism, there was not a major effort in local or national news reporting to find youth perspectives on the issue.
Russell Byers Charter School technology coordinator John Landis discussed this issue with his 4th through 6th grade students in Powerful Voices for Kids last summer, who had a range of complicated feelings and opinions. He facilitated students’ creation of video games to express their own takes on the flash mobs in Philadelphia. By using game design as a form of expression, students were able to explore a variety of points of view, including teenagers, siblings of flash mob participants, teachers, and police officers.
After planning their games on paper and discussing the role of chance, choice, and game design in constructing media messages, students designed their interactive scenarios and games on MIT’s Scratch software. To play a few of these games for yourself, check out the group’s student website.
Here’s one example of a student video game by Ahmir and Marquise:
NBC-10 sent a small news crew to film the students making their video games. After the piece was edited and aired, students discussed how they felt they were represented in the news. Though students were flattered and excited, they also noticed that footage of them served as B-roll for the newscaster’s script, despite several of them granting interviews to explain the project. Discussion of the news piece was a great way to reflect on the work they’d done and what messages they wanted to convey to an audience themselves.
EDIT: Also be sure to check out an article on the flash mob video game project by Emily Bailin at Spot.us.
Second- and third-grade students in instructor Rachel Hobbs’s comics class learned all about reading and making comics. Using online software and the program ComicLife, students combined their own drawings and photographs that they both took themselves and researched online into several comic stories.
Below is an example of one of Ms. Rachel’s lessons captured by our full-time videographer, Temple University MFA student Natasha Ngaiza, who documented over 35 hours of classroom practice this past summer. We’re only starting to unpack and edit some of this footage — a combination of observational documentary, student and instructor interviews, and high-quality student video production — but it provides great insights into what media literacy education looks like in elementary enrichment.
As environmental issues become a greater concern locally, nationally, and globally, students enrolled in Powerful Voices for Kids often have strong feelings about environmental concerns. Our instructors work with students to create media designed as a public service on topics like recycling, green roof initiatives, and keeping Philadelphia clean.
Last summer, second grade students in PVK worked with their instructor, singer/songwriter Mona Shater, to write a poem as part of the Unlitter Us anti-littering campaign in Philadelphia.
Students met with Caroline Pennartz, an advertiser who worked on the campaign, and were inspired to write their own poem. Then they created a shot list consisting of some favorite spots near school (the Comcast building, Logan Circle, etc.) and filmed a short “Poetic Service Announcement,” which was featured in the Unlitter Us campaign on Facebook.
One great thing about a summer enrichment program is the flexibility it affords to try out new concepts, tools, and teaching techniques in a low-stakes, high-curiosity environment.
Perhaps the most powerful new tool that we explored last summer is screencasting — recording anything displayed on a computer (video, text, websites, etc.) with a simultaneous voiceover. Traditionally, screencasting has been used as an instructional technique, often to teach students how to use a new computer program or web tool. At PVK, we use screencasting for student analysis. This is particularly beneficial for quick assignments and for working with younger kids whose abstract thinking skills still outpace their print literacy skills.
In our fourth grade class, instructor and Media Education Lab research fellow Emily Bailin used screencasting to give students the ability to analyze and critique music videos while they watched them. Students collaborated to write a script while watching the video several times. Then they performed their screencast in front of the class. The activity took only an hour and a half, and at the end of the process we had four amazing screencasts about videos by Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, and KRS-One. Here’s an example:
First grade students in Powerful Voices for Kids last summer explored abstract concepts like authorship roles, purposes of different types of media (advertisements, entertainment, and news), and target audience.
Below is one of many videos from Team Robot Cheetahs, in which kids draw pictures and write messages to convey their feelings about the BP oil spill. Instructor Kate Spiller helped students find developmentally appropriate PSAs, commercials, and news items about the oil spill and then the class created individual responses.
We are excited to announce that our Powerful Voices for Kids program will be running in summer 2011 in two locations — Center City, Philadelphia and Wayne, PA! We have been working with students, teachers, and faculty at the Russell Byers Charter School and Wayne Elementary School all year and are extending our media literacy teaching and learning through the summer months.
If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about the Powerful Voices for Kids program, please refer to our website — http://www.powerfulvoicesforkids.com — for more information about our partner schools, summer program, and online registration.
We will be posting our “Top Ten of 2010″ YouTube videos in the lead up to our program to share some of the wonderful work our instructors, partner teachers, and staff have done in the past year.
You can start with a brief introductory video from 2009 that introduces the five components of the program: summer enrichment, in-school mentoring, professional development, community outreach, and research and assessment:
RT @brinnbooks: Maybe embedded librarians are the wave of the future; being a resource out in the community and not just in the library? #y… 4 hours ago
RT @RosabethKanter: Takes as much effort to dream small as dream big, so might as well dream big. Stretch goals convert ho-hum to inspiring. 21 hours ago
Delightful gathering at the University Club: so great to meet Providence women from business, law, media & education uclubprov.com22 hours ago
@williamjfischer is featured in an NPR radio story about the legendary Providence #RI Superman building - congrats, Bill! 2 days ago
